Rackham

I'm assuming to reduce confusion. Look at how many questions on the forms would never have been asked if people bothered to read all the text on a cruise planner page. In this case, I'm willing to bet Royal has dealt with many angry passangers that "Chops + 1" didn't mean the guest booking the reservation gets to bring a guest as part of the booking. i.e. people were taking the +1 to mean an extra guest versus getting to dine at Chops plus another specialty resturant during the cruise.

Buy 1 Get 1 50% Off for 48 hours only* seems to work for Royal. *For full offer details, visit http://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruiseplanner. Offer applies to purchases made on May 07, 2024, and applies to select ships recieved by customer between May 09, 2024 - May 31, 2025. Offers are non-transferable and not combinable with Crown & Anchor discounts or any other offer or promotion. Additional fees may apply for enviromental or regulatory compliance. Prices and offers are subject to availability and change without notice, capacity controlled, and may be withdrawn at any time. Royal Caribbean International reserves the right to correct any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions and to change or update pricing, fees and surcharges at any time without prior notice.

Royal sends people around offering discounted dining reservations and the waitstaff in their restaurants will also make pitches when bookings are low.

Could be a glimpse of things to come. The other prices might not be updated to reflect where prices might be soon.

I'd suspect so. With that said, there's a range of tails from the MDR. I was dining at Chef's Table on Oasis during the second formal night in 2021 (lobster night) and our chef plated MDR lobster tails he had personally selected with our filet mignon course. It was a noticeable step up from what I've seen on my MDR plate before and since then. My gut feeling is this move is less about the cost between whole live lobster and lobster tails, as it is about Royal reducing the inventory they're purchasing and managing across the fleet. Doesn't make it any less disappointing though.

For a couple of reasons. First, loyalty benefits are there to drive bookings. With drink packages as part of the cruise booking bundle, there needs to be something a little extra to encourage Celebrity bookings if drink vouchers make a debut on X. Having the vouchers go up to those drinks is a nice perk with a drink package. Without any data, it'd make the premium package feel like it's more inclusive and make the classic (? can't recall the name) feel less restrictive. Thus, encouraging bookings with the inclusions. Second, on Royal, at Diamond it saves at least $5 pp per day, $2 pp per day at Diamond+, and would cost Royal an extra $1 pp per day at Pinnacle if someone actually had that many $17 beverages as they'd be entitled to. This makes increasing the voucher value, with decreasing their number, a net positive on the Royal side while sounding like a good trade to the general public.

I'm expecting RCCL to be switching to daily points based on cabin category, like Celebrity, with the changeover. C&A points would be converted during the change over so that no one loses ground from the C&A levels, but big spenders would also not gain ground for previous suite bookings. Also, because most people don't cruise as much as many of the regulars in these sorts of forums, I'd expect point totals to be combined by addition. Since post program consolidation a cruise on either line would net the same amount of points, addition makes the most sense. The other reasonable option is the ending point total, after adjustment of C&A points to a category based system, is the new account receives the higher total of points between C&A and CC. Any other option runs into issues with processing requirements or people losing status levels. Benefit wise I'm expecting drink vouchers to be decreased by one for the levels formerly known as Diamond, Diamond+, and Pinnacle (happy hour on X would go away). However, the new vouchers value will be increased to $17 so that it includes Celebrity's highest priced menu cocktails at select bars. Drink vouchers, and the promise of them in the future, gets people excited to book another cruise and the service cost for RCG is negligible. While decreasing the count given will make some people angry, increasing their value at the same time and making them available on Celebrity should have most either pleased or at least thinking it's a lateral move from a benefit perspective.

Here's where I ate in Halifax and can recommend. From my notes. Sicilian Pizza. Local pizza and the city specialty of donair (skyscanner.ca/tips-and-inspiration/halifax-donair). Good quality and reasonable prices. Le French Fixe Patisserie. Local coffee and bake shop. Decent espresso and canelé. Fantastic smells. Limited hours.

I haven't, but that's an excellent prediction. Making the program change announcement during those sailings would allow both companies to directly engage with, at least part of, the crowd who'd blast them on social media with questions (and possible doom posting). Then, the socials can be flooded with information about the overhaul without Royal needing to do too much marketing about the changes. It's win-win for the RCG if that's the plan.

You can't order dessert for the rest of the cruise, you naughty person, you.

And it's one 750mL bottle of wine per adult, aged 21 or older, unlike the soft drinks which is per stateroom.

It's probably has to do with the carry out window concept and menu pricing. Royal doesn't want people sharing so they've set the credit value at the cost of one bento box. The menu for reference: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/sites/default/files/styles/desktop_1x/public/2024-01/Izumi-in-the-park-menu.jpg.webp?itok=1uST2-Nx To me, it would've made more sense to have IZUMI in the Park included under the $20 credit value restaurants and increase the cost of a sushi tray to $12. Therefore people with the UDP could get a combination of sushi plus a hot choice or desert. It seems less cheap, but none of these items look expensive to make, and the slight increase in sushi pricing isn't bad when comparing to prices at the full service restaurant.

There's two different IZUMI restaurants found on Royal Caribbean, IZUMI Sushi and IZUMI Hibachi. The UDP at sushi will either cover the prix fixe menu or provide $39.99 worth of a la carte credit. At IZUMI Hibachi you get to choose 1 of their menu selections, premium selections are included, but there's an additional $15 cover charged to your ship account for the visit to Hibachi. Sushi at hibachi would be an additional charge. Edit: And on the rare ship (only Icon at the moment, Utopia this summer) with IZUMI in the Park, there's a once a day $10 credit with the UDP to use at the carryout window.

It's the Celebrity Reflection. From their cruise planner. $3,499 for the OTW cabanas and $198.99 for Beach Club on its own.

I was looking at the menu for Hooked on Navigator tonight and noticed the dinner menu has been updated. Several options were removed (ex. whole lobster) while others have been made less interesting (ex. Royal Seafood Platter). Personally it feels cheaper, but the addition of coconut shrimp will probably be a hit. A pdf of the previous menu and a screenshot from the app of the current menu are attached. Lunch appears to be untouched for now. HOOKDINNER.pdf

The only one of those trademarks which sounds like a loyalty program with cross branding and marketing potential is "Royal One". One loyalty program for the Royal Caribbean Group merging together all others. Royal One, because when you're sailing with the Royal Caribbean Group, you're a Royal One. On the others, Anchored sounds like you've crossing the mob if you're choosing to sail other lines. Boundless and Aspire sound like Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors respectively. Royal Rewards sounds like a casino or other program which either resets annually or uses earnable, then spendable, points. Flagship just doesn't have the cachet that Royal One has. It's there, but doesn't really do much emotionally.

For everyone who plans [far, far] in advance, CocoCay is in the direct path of the August 12, 2045 total solar eclipse. Nearly 6 minutes of totality!

Two videos which future gamblers doing it for the comps might find helpful for understanding slots. How Slot Machines ACTUALLY Work From a Slot Tech and Engineer - Gamble Smart - https://youtu.be/bjXhjbf1M4o Truth of Cruise Ship Slots Leave your cruise a WINNER! Don't make this mistake! - Cowboy Slots - https://youtu.be/b_dwe5Ha2UA As an aside, based on the point accumulation rules and Royal's typical video poker tables I've seen, whether playing slots or perfect video poker, gamblers will lose approximately the same amount of money either way. If you're in the casino just for the comps, might as well skip the video poker (and learning perfect play) for slots.

Since this one was so extra, maybe they'll decide on a design hankering to the cup of a carpenter.

I'm imaging the prices going up on the packages has to do with the potential for pre-bookings starting sometime this year. There's less need to give a substantial discount over booking individual reservations if Royal's switching the dining packages from something akin to a GTY for restaurants to a "You pick" setup. Though with how many new cruisers Royal attracts, I bet they were fielding multiple complaints each sailing from people not realizing the packages were to ensure restaurant traffic by selling tables which would otherwise go unoccupied. Does anyone know how it worked on Wonder when it was being tested? I'm curious to know if after purchasing a package if restaurant reservations in the app/website didn't happen with the normal steps, but there was no charge for the reservation at checkout?

It does seem they're moving that way. I suspect long term RCG wants to position RCCL in the same space as DCL in mass market plus space and have Celebrity act as their line for people looking for a classicish cruising experience. Keeping the programs together would further help with cross brand retention. I could see a reduction in drink vouchers with the merger and the cost of the drink covered increased by a few dollars. I could also see their not being any changes as hotel programs can have different benifits depending on the hotel brand.

I've seen it be all over the map as to when it starts to populate. When I started cruising with Royal in 2022, the word online then was 6 to 9 months before the sail date. From personal experience, things trickle in as they do earlier than that, but sale pricing can be highly variable as to when it applies. Not just the amount of the discount, but whether or not there's one at all.

Slightly smaller than Voyager-class if twangster is correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Edge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager-class_cruise_ship

Interesting. I wonder if the idea is to do away with waiting in the terminal for check-ins before the ship is ready for embarkation?

This makes perfect sense within the context of Royal going after families who'd consider vacationing at a major theme park. Cozumel is a popular port with many, many ships calling on it. Providing a beach club option for travelers who are uncomfortable getting outside Royal's bubble through non-Royal resorts is going to make them a mint.